Earlier today, an 18-month-old Palestinian child was killed.Ali Saad Dawabsha was burnt to death and his father and mother and 4-year-old brother taken to hospital in a critical condition. Shortly after 2.00 am, the killers tried unsuccessfully to gain access to another Palestinian home. They failed, so they moved to the home Ali Saad Dawabsha, broke windows and threw in fire-bombs. The child was burnt to death.
In 1998, when plans for an Orange march down the Garvaghy Road were at their height, three young brothers – Richard, Mark and Jason Quinn, aged 11, 9 and 7 respectively – had their home in Ballymoney attacked. Around 4.30 am, a petrol bomb was thrown through the window of their terraced house. All three boys died in the flames. Their mother, her boyfriend and a family friend escaped with minor injuries and shock. A number of loyalist bands defied RUC requests not to play music while marching past the boy’s grandmother’s house in the days after the killings.
It’s almost certain that many Israelis, including Jewish settlers, are horrified by the death of Ali Saad Dawabsha and the injuries to his family. You could say they had nothing to do with it. But that’s not how the Palestinian leader Saeb Erekat sees it. “This is a direct consequence of impunity given by the Israeli government to settler terrorism. We cannot separate the barbaric attack that took place in Duma last night from the recent settlement approvals by the Israeli government”.
Likewise I am sure there were hundreds if not thousands of Orangemen horrified by the action in Ballymoney. But as with the death of Ali Saad Dawabsha, the tail of responsibility is a long one. Those who committed the barbaric crime in Ballymoney were almost certainly motivated by the same fervour that convinced the Orange Order of its right to march where it pleased. Just as no Jewish settler, no member of the Israeli government is free from guilt over the death Ali Saad Dawabsha, none of those urging the right to march down Garvaghy Road, no member of the Orange Order is free from guilt over the deaths of Richard, Mark and Jason Quinn. The Orange Order does provide a fun day out for many. It also provides the seeds of hatred and murder for some of its supporters.
But the significant point of this harrowing story is that it will not get one percent of the world’s news headlines that the killing of an African lion by an American dentist.
Just as the deaths of dozens of unnamed people murdered daily by American and British drones in places like Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan will never receive the world condemnation they deserve.
Priorities in this world are sadly very askew!
Rather a one eyed blog you could have gone on and pondered why a third of catholics voted for a party that had no problem in justifing a terrorist campaign but that would not fit into your world view we are cursed with sectarianism in this society and until both communities admit to this we will not move forward an inch
Well neill, we Catholics have had to put up with the PUL community constantly voting for the DUP/UUP, parties linked through the decades with various killer groups, from the Ulster Resistance to the UDR. Or maybe those graves are actually empty?
So I can take it you don’t have a problem with it then?
The DUP, Neill, was founded by a fundamentalist, ultra bigoted, notorious anti-Catholic preacher called Ian Paisley and is the biggest party in Northern Ireland by elected reps. You think Catholics didn’t wonder why Protestants kept voting for Ian Paisley? And before you say “Ian Paisley was not a terrorist”, well that’s certainly debatable, he certainly socialized with terrorists in the UDA/UVF, that’s for sure, and praised many of them. And yet Protestants kept voting for him and I’ll eat my laptop if you didn’t come from a family who voted for Paisley, Neill.
Even many Protestants today, like Lord Trimble and, of course, Sir James Galway, say the troubles would not have happened if it were not for Ian Paisley….and yet Protestants still voted for him and flocked out in their thousands at his rallies.
You have to stop being hypocritical Neill. Hypocrisy doesn’t make the Unionist political parties look good or win arguments, it doesn’t for you either.
My family have never ever voted Dup never will ever.
I see you spurned the chance to answer my question that’s not a surprise in fairness
When you have a state committing genocide, orchestrating murder and ruling through fear then many but not all of its citizens will act and mirror their masters. It is a truly awful and barbaric act to target any family with young children – who were, in this instance, completely vulnerable and at the mercy of Jewish extremists. The state of Israel is very much to blame despite the fact that they wholeheartedly believe that might is right. Their condemnations mean nothing as they continue their theft of Arab land. Sadly the murder of this child, like so many others, will be forgotten about in days to come as Israel continues its systematic destruction of a way of life, a culture and many many livelihoods.
Would it be unreasonable,Jude, to spread your net to include the entire unionist community as part of your long tail of responsibility? After they hold the CNR community responsible for all misdeeds and punish that community accordingly. Kill a taig. Any taig will do.
Benjamin Netanyahu’s words have a hollow sound. He presides over a pro-settler coalition government determined to construct more homes even if it means evicting Palestinians. Earlier this week, settlers scuffled with police as Israeli authorities demolished two partially built blocks which the high court had ruled were built illegally on Palestinian-owned land, in the settlement of Beit El.
Ali Saad Dawabsha’s horrible death and the serious injuries sustained by his father, mother and brother could have been avoided if Mr Netanyahu was a man of peace. One only has to recall a recent televised discussion between Mr Netanyahu and President Obama. In response to President Obama’s proposal for a two state peace initiative, Mr Netanyahu ruled it out and ended the discussion. He turned his back on a peace initiative and on the rights of the Palestinian people to peacefully coexist with their neighbours.
Meanwhile back at the ranch, King Canute’s rank and file are stepping up calls for the deployment of troops, checkpoints and border patrols in order to deal with the floods of migrants using Ireland as a back door to England. It beggars belief to hear elected representatives talking about swarms of people coming into “our” country when military might forced its way into their countries and left death and destruction in its wake.
It is all about priorities. What matters most, the incineration of children in Ballymoney and Palestine or ‘bonds’ and ‘flegs’ in Belfast and traffic jams in the shires?
I used to be baffled why some members of the LUP community flew the Israeli flag….now I know why.
They fly Israeli flags but yet Israeli rebels killed more British soldiers than the IRA did during the whole troubles…..and to top it all off, many Senior Israeli rebels honoured and regarded Michael Collins, a Senior IRA commander, as a hero and used his tactics while trying to oust the Brits from Israel…..
What a strange people Loyalists are….
Yes Jude there are great many similarities between the two episodes of sectarian murder which you describe and the motivations of hate of the perpetrators which may be connected to right wing Zionist and loyalist groups like the Orange Order.
Is there not another factor which gives succour to bigots in the Orange Order and that is the tacit credibility lent to them by ordinances of some of the Protestant Churches here.
Does it not naturally follow that if my church tells me that the Pope is the Anti-Christ and that Catholics are the “devil’s disciples” that I wouldn’t want to enter their place of worship let alone marry one?
The Orange Order is only the outward manifestations of the “Westminister Confession of Faith” which all except for the Non-Subscribing Presbyterian Church follows!
I remember William Crawley, then presenting Sunday Sequence, tackling a senior Presbyterian minister on the negative effects of the Westminister Confession of Faith on tackling sectarianism here. The minister who was a woman seem very embarrassed about it and admitted that it would be in everyone’s interest here to see it removed but conceded that there were a bulk of very hardline opinion within the Presbyterian churches who did not want to see it removed.
Do we all not have a responsibility (including the media) to identify the individuals within the Presbyterian churches who continue to give succour to the harbingers of hate within our society by continuing to support the retention of these articles of division and hate?
Individual ministers are being allowed to hide behind their church governance mechanisms to possibly shroud their own hate filled prejudices!
Those ministers are part of our problem here and the sooner their views are exposed to public ridicule like the Pastor James McConnell then the better for everyone here!
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1612722698993653&set=gm.954791187910983&type=1&theater
Forty years ago today, the Maimi Showband slaughter took place, now correct me if I am wrong but weren`t members of the British state forces involved in that? People paid a salary by the British tax payers, what a farce.
And the current deputy first minister had an active involvement with the IRA in the North West so your point is?
That all sides were involved in armed actions, not just the one.
The possibility of a Palestinian child’s murder by burning, Esteemed Blogmeister and as a result, causing a kerfuffle on Liffeyside is remote.
The ruffling of feathers is just not an option. Specially those feathers of the morally selective folk with their fingers on the correct response buttons in the DOBland media when atrocities are committed by Israeli arsonists.
Fact is, the Missies (of both sexes) who have been so successful in branding Dubh Linn as the City of Ulysses have simultaneously muzzled the capital of the Free Southern Stateen.
After all, it would be somewhat difficult to celebrate, on the one hand, a novel which has as its core value the superiority of the Jew over the Gael, a demented celebration which has grown exponentially from Bloomsday to Bloomsweek, while at the same time condemning the immolation of a Gaelistinian by Zionist terrorists.
In Joycean terms, Citizen Ali Saad Dawabsha (18 months) was a mere Paddy Stink of Palestine. Truly, is Baile Atha Cliath a Bleak House for the dispossessed.
Speaking of which, the Dickensian novel of the same name features a character called Krook, a rag and bone merchant, who perishes by spontaneous combustion. Not to mention an Inspector Bucket.
The Inspector Buckets of B.A.C. would no doubt lean towards the second phenomenon as a plausible, politically correct explanation of the latest atrocity.
What has led to this clearly cockeyed state of affairs? Could it be something in the waters of the Liffey? Let’s go the H 2 O route, so.
The Liffey does rise on the slopes of Kippure/ Cipiur in the Dublin Mountains (sic) and Israel sloped home to a sneaky victory in the Yom Kippur/ Day of Atonement War in 1973.
Are they, one wonders, in anyway related?
So when does Israel start a war with the settlers in response to this attack ?
Sad fact is, fundamental Jews and Islamists hate each other, they do not give a fig for the suffering of the other lot. That`s just the way it is, Hamas has called for a `day of rage`, well we all know where that will lead, to more deaths, the vast majority of them Muslim. Netanyahu can never bring peace, he is a part of the problem.
I may not be quoting accurately word for word, but I seem to remember a senior Orange man saying after the Quinn murders that “a road isn’t worth the lives of 3 children”. That shows that many Orange men DID have guilt for the murders of the Quinn children because they knew if they hadn’t have persisted in their demand to march through a Catholic area then the murders would never have happened. I also remember US Senator Edward Kennedy putting the blame of the Quinn children’s murders on the Orange Order.
For the Loyalist bands to play music to deliberately disrespect the grandmother of the Quinn children is disgraceful but sure we all know their antics when it comes to Catholic chapels and passing by Catholic areas and then they wonder why they don’t get any respect for their “culture”….
There is no respect or tolerance for sectarianism.
Ryan
I think you are right. The heat went out of the Drumcree protest after the Quinn children were murdered. I think many Orangemen felt those events were connected to their protest. Sadly that lesson seems to have been forgotten.
It is a bit of a stretch to make all Orangemen complicit in their deaths however. They could not have known how things would happen in Ballymoney.
All kinds of protests happen in society and those taking part cannot be held responsible for what some bunch of thugs decide to do elsewhere.
No difference from the quinns being murdered or people in le mons murder is murder but I will point blank refuse to let any republican have the moral high ground all the participants have done unspeakable things here time we all owned up to it
“we all owned up to it” – are you sure, neill? The IRA has owned up to most if not all things they did and apologised for the hurt inflicted. I’m not sure the same can be said from all on the unionist side. Or have I got that wrong (too)?
The loyalists did so as well don’t see on the day of their ceasefire or did you forget?
No, not ‘the loyalists’, neill. The UVF in the person of Gusty Spence did. All the other participants in the conflict? I think not.